


Five Hangovers

by Arch  (Arch)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arch/pseuds/Arch%20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Items written on New Year's Day, 1978-1982.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Hangovers

1 January 1978

Moony,

Here is your New Year's Owl as promised! Last night was great fun, it's too bad you couldn't stay longer. We could mock you for being tied to your girl's apron strings (why won't you tell us her name? we wouldn't do anything too evil) but nobody is more whipped than James is, and we all know it, so I say why bother trying.

Sirius and James and I carried on the New Year's Eve Rumble with a spectacularly massive fight involving not only pillows (because Sirius and James said a pillow fight would be shamefully girly, even though they're the ones who started the pillow fight and squealed in a manner that I call girlish) but also leftover Christmas crackers, some dodgy satsumas, and lots and lots of Firewhiskey. Teams were lopsided, but cushions were burnt, teapots were transfigured, and noise ordinances were bravely defied. You know, the usual.

James and Sirius have just woken up. James says to tell you that all of our heads feel like they have been infiltrated by boa constrictors that are squeezing our brains all to jelly, and Sirius says that it is urgent that you know that his mouth feels like many small animals have died inside it and he hopes that is not literally true. But we all say that it was all worth it to hear your Celestina Warbeck impressions before you left. When we are old and desiccated, Remus, we will listen to Celestina Warbeck and I will remind you of this night and laugh, like a noble laughing thing which I would be able to describe far better were it not for the moaning gits in the background.

Anyway, happy 1978! When are you coming back? James is being nauseating about Lily, and Sirius and I need some manly reinforcement to counteract James's pining. He is like a small girl daydreaming out the window and sighing and drawing hearts on everything just because Lily has gone home to visit her family.

HELP US MOONY IN OUR HOURS AND DAYS OF NEED. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HELP? YOUR MUM'S FAMOUS CAKE. YUM YUM

Sorry, Sirius stole my quill. Cake does sound good though.

Cheers, mate!  
Peter

***

1 January 1979

MOOOONY 1979 has arrived and YOU ARE NOT HERE WITH US AGAIN, ALACKADAY. I understand that your mother is very ill (and all of us send our love and will not make uncouth demands for cake this year, unlike some cretin last year, who could that have been) but still we are selfish and wish you were here. Peter is passed out on the sofa and James and Lily are being all cuddly and nauseating in the kitchen as if the smacking sound of kissy-face doesn't echo alarmingly in one's head when there are all manner of unpleasant things in there instead of brains. Namely the undead remnants of different sorts of alcohol all combined into an army of painful and distracting monsters that I think might be mining for gold inside my head. I keep telling them that the gold is not inside my head, but naturally my brain is just as valuable as gold so they do not listen.

Anyway we desperately wish you were here, as a third wand would really help Peter and me to win the hexing war. The New Year's Eve Rumble was awful last night, James was all fluttery and solicitous about the wife and was she hurt and Sirius how could you she's a girl, but that just made Lily angry and long story short James is sprouting some particularly fetching tentacles, which really is what his face has always needed, why did we not see it before? And we call ourselves his mates. Shame on us. Anyway, that bit was pretty entertaining though not nearly as fun as MANLY FIGHTING both magical and non.

Reading back through this letter I suspect that I may still be somewhat tipsy as usually my missives are beautifully organised and grammatically stunning as befits a Black, though why my mother always insisted on that sort of thing is beyond me because my cousin Bellatrix is doing all sorts of horrific things (to wizards no less!) and yet she isn't unbefitting of Blackdom, and you'd think that would be worse than, say, improper grammar, or thinking that maybe Muggles might be people, but you know, such is life. ANYWAY my point is grammar, and this awful letter, and how I am not normally so manic and rambly but usually just one or the other, and TIME FOR MORE FIREWHISKEY.

Maybe I should come visit you and your family! Your mum loves me, perhaps just a roguish grin from her favorite non-son will fix her right up! Too bad we couldn't pry James away from Lily because I have always suspected that your mum loves him even more than me (it is one of the greatest tragedies of my young yet tragic life) and she would think it hilarious if the two of us arrived on flying motorcycle to cheer her into health. And then once she is better she can bake us cake!

I know you are thinking "how can Sirius be so frivolous when there is a war on and would he really endanger my family by coming here," and my dear friend you are correct to ask these boring questions -- but here is my question to you: when there is a war on, why NOT be frivolous? There's no escaping danger, so why let it dictate your life? And besides, if I did come visit you, it's not like I would attach a great glowing sign to myself that said "OI DEATH EATERS, I AM SIRIUS BLACK, ASK ME HOW!" Actually that would be brilliant, but I wouldn't do that and then fly to your mum's house, I'm not an idiot. I could Polyjuice myself into that little wart Regulus though, which might be dangerous if someone on our side found me, but then I don't think our side is going to torture and kill me or turn me over to Dementors without so much as a trial, by which time the Polyjuice will have worn off and I can emerge as my triumphant self.

Anyway the kitchen is finally vacant of snogging Potters so I am going to make myself some toast. Cheers mate and HAPPY NEW YEAR (and tell your mum too, and give her our love)!

PADFOOT THE SPLENDID

***

1 January 1980

Dear Peter,

In finest New Year's tradition James, Sirius, and Remus are currently groaning on the sofas with the curtains drawn, but they wanted to make sure you got a Happy New Year's greeting since you couldn't be here to celebrate with us. I'm meant to tell you that they are giving up alcohol forever and resolving to become Sensible Grown-Ups in 1980. My hopes are not high, though I suppose stranger things have happened. Things felt a bit lackluster without you; Sirius especially kept reminding me of an actor who looks up in the middle of a soliloquy and discovers his audience has disappeared. Poor git.

At any rate, we were concerned when we heard that You-Know-Who had struck again because we didn't hear from you afterward, but we were able to find out from Dumbledore that you weren't among the victims. We were so relieved, Peter, but we're still worried because we haven't heard from you in so long. The boys did miss you a great deal last night and kept complaining that the New Year's Eve Rumble was awful with only three Marauders and a pregnant woman (though they needn't have coddled me so). I know the boys are sometimes a bit careless about saying things, and you've all been friends for so long that I think they sometimes don't think of the effects when they get snappish. Sometimes they forget to say the most obvious things. They miss you when you're not around.

Oh, rot, I seem to have come over all sentimental. Rubbish hormones. Anyway, I hope you can stop by later to say hello. While the boys were getting drunk and rolling around on the ground in completely non-homoerotic fashion, I managed to cook up a small feast, and we'll be eating all day today. By tomorrow we'll be wider than we are tall, so come join in the gluttony! There is more than enough and we would love to see you.

Oh, dear, James is awake and wants to say something, so I'll turn this over to him. Happy New Year, Peter!

Love,  
Lily

Wormtail, old chap, old bean, Happy New Year! Where were you last night, you missed my Epic Trouncing of certain friends of the canine persuasion, and oh was it Epic with a Capital E. Poems will be written, songs will be sung, but not by me today because this is the worst hangover I have ever had, and you saw the last two years so you know that's saying quite a lot. Lily will have to do the singing for me since she is all fresh-faced and chipper. In the meantime I repeat that you missed out last night, you could have been trounced Epically as well and lived on in history as Wormtail the Weak who fell sadly to Prongs the Powerful and Potent and Puissant and Majestic and Noble and Heroic and Lightning-Reflexed and Exceptionally Manly. Alas it is not to be, and only Padfoot the Pathetic and Moony the Miserable will feature in the songs. And then I'll have to sneak in all the bits about Lily the Lovely because she won't write them about herself (I asked already and she scoffed and then mumbled something about "modesty" and how I couldn't be expected to know what that was, which is true! I thought it had to do with wearing a respectable amount of clothing, something that you know I have NEVER supported especially when it comes to Lily).

Come see us later, Dear Boy! Lily has somehow cooked enough food to feed the entire Wizarding World or possibly even all of the starving muggles on the entire planet, and also this is our last New Year's without a small child underfoot (let's hope it's a mini-Lils and not a mini-me or else we'll be in for trouble, eh?). I know it's been ages, eons, an entire Epoch of Meaningful Time since you have seen us, which means you must visit before we track you down and wreak our Horrible Vengeance! ARGLE BARGLE etc.

No, seriously. Come OR ELSE.

HUGS AND KISSES SMOOCHY-POO

LOVE PRONGS

Oh and PS could you maybe bring the ingredients so we can brew up some Hangover Helper? Thaaaanks chum!

***

1 January 1981

Remus,

Look, mate, I don't know where you were last night, and I don't care. I'm tired of this weird silent row. I'm sorry for accusing you of keeping secrets from us. This bloody war is making us paranoid, and spending time with Mad-Eye isn't helping. Just come and say hello, all right? You should at least see Harry who has become a veritable prodigy at sitting up without falling over. With sitting skills like that he will earn thirty-seven Outstanding NEWTs. They'll have to invent new NEWTs just for him, and we will have to do interviews with the Daily Prophet about being the parents of the World's Greatest Genius, and it will be a sore trial but we will deal with the fame and fortune somehow.

Sirius has already left on some business for the Order. It's just us and Wormtail, and we miss you.

I hope we'll see you later.

James

***

1 January 1982

Scrawled on the wall of the "drunk tank": _Should've gone last year.___

> `DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT  
> MINISTRY OF MAGIC HEADQUARTERS  
> LEVEL TWO
> 
> DUE: G50  
> FROM: Remus John Lupin  
> CHARGE: Drunk and Disorderly  
> NOTES: Fine paid by Albus Dumbledore, 1/1/82.
> 
> SIGNED: Amelia S. Bones
> 
> `

  



End file.
